Film #4 Gangster Squad (10.1.13)

#4.  GANGSTER SQUAD

Tell me, did you find L.A Confidential too difficult to follow?

Do you consider the Untouchables too be to old to watch these days? Is the Godfather just too darn long?

Well you need the all-new, Holly-lite gangster movie app! Introducing an exciting new way to way films about the 'olden' days when gangsters shooted big Tommy guns and carried violin cases and drove those olden-day cars and girls was called dames and everybody smoked, even babies!

We know it's hard to watch films with complicated plots, but luckily Hollywood realises this and is actively pursuing ways of making a new kind of movie magic! MovieLite!

it's simplicity itself, take a genre, say gangster for sake of argument. Now strip away anything difficult, like a plot and have your characters just talk in handy bite-size quips or info-bursts. Have one character for each social-ethnic group and gender regardless of historical evidence or fact. Now add one character to explain everything carefully to your hero so he and you, more importantly, don't get too confused. Use montages to convey the passage of time. Remember your three act rule religiously. Now add in lots of gun battles where only baddies and those innocents who will need to die to motivate your heroes actually die. Also remember that bullets and guns are great and that lots of bullets fired through Christmas trees and presents looks fantastic! Now add slow motion and music inspired by Batman and Inception and behold! Gangster Squad.

And best of all, 5 minutes after leaving the cinema you won't even remember seeing it! 5/10*

*these 5 points are shared by Emma Stone for being Emma Stone and for Sean Penn who is superb although because he's acting properly looks horribly out of place in this film.